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Office 2010 Rearm

It’s widely known that Microsoft allows anyone to install and use any version of Windows 7 for 30 days without having to enter a product activation key. By using the slmgr -rearm command, this 30-day trial period can be extended three times for a total of 120 days before the installation must be activated to continue functioning.

It is less known, perhaps, that Microsoft has implemented a similar method for delaying the activation of Office 2010 for up to 180 days. The steps below are from the Deploy volume activation of Office 2010 instructions on TechNet.

To rearm your Office 2010 installation

Make sure all Office 2010 applications are closed.

Open an elevated command prompt.

Go to %installdir%\%Program Files%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform. If you installed the 32-bit edition of Office 2010 on a 64-bit operating system, %Program Files% is the Program Files (x86) folder.

Run ospprearm.exe.

(The italics are mine, as I was tripped up for awhile by looking for ospprearm.exe under C:\Program Files\, rather than the Program Files (x86) folder.)

The Office 2010 rearm delays the activation requirement for 30 days, and it can be used five times, for a total of 180 days of activation-free use.